The Dragon Quest VI booth had two demo files available: a demo of the prologue, and a Level 27 file with a full party. I opted for the prologue file, which began with the hero and his two friends preparing to attack a castle under the cover of darkness to defeat someone named Mudo. After a dragon-summoning sequence that made good use of the DS’s dual screens, the trio arrived at the ominously empty castle.

In an obvious ambush, the intrepids go charging into the throne room to defeat Mudo, but are absolutely overpowered by his magic and scattered to faraway locations. The hero wakes up in a lone town, rather amnesiac about the whole ordeal. From this point on, it was pretty standard fare: go through a cave to deliver something, fight vicious Toriyama-designed monsters. The monsters had some really great animation, much better than still images.

The graphics were nice, the interface was clear, and beyond that, I’m not sure what else more to say about the demo. It’s a Dragon Quest game, and played exactly like one. That’s not a bad thing, and the demo was fun enough. I guess it says something about the notoriety of the series when “Dragon Quest-like” can be used as a descriptor and people know what you mean. Dragon Quest VI has a turn-based, first person RPG battle system, saving at churches, and a level grinding style of progression. If that’s your thing, you’ll probably love it and have boatloads of fun with it. I know I enjoyed it.

The only thing the booth lacked was headphones: the Tokyo Game Show easily drowned out the DS speakers, so I couldn’t hear the sound at all.